Posts Tagged ‘giant baby’

I have been attending German classes now for about 6 months. They are semi-private which in theory, should have been very helpful.

But, I am a lazy student.

And BJD was travelling so much, it was difficult to do any of the homework.

To my advantage was that I speak quite well, with my fair share of grammatical mistakes. But I get along with pretty much most people I speak with. (In comparison, the other student is better at the written and grammar, but not so good at the spoken word.)

My teacher recommended I try reading in German. Since my postpartum depression began almost 5 years ago (wow, it really has been a long time), I have changed my reading habits. I used to have quite an assortment of historical fiction or horror or real life stories of murder and well, quite gruesome reading. But I balanced that out with the occasional fluff. However, I have since gotten rid of any book that brought me down. (thanks amazon for letting me sell stuff!)

Finding a book that was natively written in German (not a translation) and that didn’t contain any of the drama that makes my heart race and my mind go non-stop wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. But I found a great series by Kerstin Geier – Die Mütter-Mafia (the mother mafia).

The first book in the series took me about 2 weeks to finish (had it been in English it would have taken 2 days tops). But it really was cool to read something in German about life in Germany. It is set in Cologne and is basically about a woman who gets pregnant while in college, marries the guy, leaves school, and spends her life as a Hausfrau, until one day he tells her he wants a divorce and offers her (and their 2 kids) his mother’s house.

A bit dramatic of course, but it slowly introduces other characters, including a midwife and her 2 sons, grumpy old neighbors that try to sue for every thing possible (could they have spent time in the states?) and another neighborly couple that is trying desperately to have a baby but can’t.

She addresses mothering, life as a hausfrau, life as a mom in Germany (which truly is different than life in the states – but that’ll be another post), divorce, getting screwed over, the “perfect” mommies, infertility and miscarriages. But it is presented in a way that is foreign to me (not just the language, ha ha …) It is presented in a way that is reflective of the German culture.

I made it through the first book and quickly search my lover (a.Ma.zOn) for more in the series. I am almost done with the 2nd book after just a few days and am so proud of my ability to read through and understand.

Go me!

We still have no move date. Pins and needles doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. Nor does it begin to describe the difficulties BJD and I are dealing with, trying to adjust to his travels and being back home.

On top of it all, Giant Baby turns 2 at the end of this month. She is cutting her 2 year molars and is quite miserable at times. AND the terrible twos that we didn’t face with her brother – oh yeah, those are coming forth in triplicate.

Lucky us.

Something is bothering Bubba Joe. And I don’t know what it is. At first I thought it was the initial adjustment of his dad being around. But BJD has been around for quite some time now. Bubba got a bit better but the last 2 days has just had meltdown after meltdown.

And when he has one, the only thing you can do is, well, be me and not his dad, hold him and tell him it is okay to cry.

Yelling does not work (though in the moment it makes me feel better). Neither does walking away because that only frustrates him more.

Asking him what is wrong in the middle of meltdown mode doesn’t work either – because you just can’t understand what he’s saying, especially if he mixes his languages when saying something (many words he uses I don’t have yet in my vocabulary).

I wrote this on June 15, 2010. I never posted it (at least I don’t think I did. I am too lazy right now to go back and check). But I personally can’t stand having things unfinished sitting around (see my other post today – what I ddn’t post there though is that stuff sitting around weighs on me.) So I decided to publish.

Both kids have had chronic ear infections. Bubba Joe had tubes placed when he was 6 months old but had to have them again.

Giant Baby has been on an antibiotic for over 6 months.

They can both thank me for crappy eustachian tubes. I had chronic ear infections as a child too.

Both children went in today to have tubes placed and their adenoids removed.

This is not a post though about why to do this or why not. Or why we scheduled both kids on the same day. Or how it came about.

Nope. This is instead a post of how horrible today was.

Giant Baby went first. She was okay. I stayed with her until the gas took affect and she slept. Her eyes were so scared. But I was brave and kept it together. Bubba Joe was scared but I was able to sing him “Sofia’s Sunshine Song” (you are my sunshine) and calm him.

He pulled through everything with no problem.

She, on the other hand … came to and started bleeding from the nose. They thought they had it stopped … then it gushed. I have blood stains on my clothing. They then took her for a second operation to clean everything up and I believe they cauterised the wounds.

After the second operation, she was much better.

But she smells.

It’s a smell I had forgotten but one I wish I never would have known.

It is the smell I associate with death and hospitals.

It is the smell my dad had while in the hospital before he died.

I don’t know how to describe it, other than once you smell it, you know it.

I don’t think I have cried so hard in such a long time, with absolute fear for my children. I can with absolute certainty say that the fear of losing a parent is much less than the fear of losing a child. My fears, thankfully, were put to rest when she pulled through.

But she’s been not quite herself yet … I will give her a bit more time until I really worry.

Today truly sucked. And somehow I thought that writing it out and sharing it with you it might ease my heart, but sadly it has not. It is just sitting there. I look forward to tomorrow, in hopes that both children will feel better – and I will write more about Bubba Joe’s complications. (Cause, you know, I can never do things the easy way so why should my kids)

As a young girl, I share a room with my sister. I was 15 months younger and relied heavily upon her for my feelings of security and comfort. It was such a dependency that if she woke in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I would wake and cry until she returned.

Once I hit college, I began to appreciate time alone. It wasn’t that I wanted to be alone all the time, it was simply that I began to recognise the simplicity in solitude.

A friend recently commented to me that she thinks there is some correlation with my father’s death, my pregnancy with Bubba Joe and my depression. My response to her was duh! (with a bit of eye rolling)

But that got me thinking.

I miss my dad horribly. I have talked about that. But what I think fail to realize is that my dad is dead. Dead and gone. Long gone and buried.

Now that might sound harsh or cruel, but it’s the truth.

I watched him die. I held his hand. I listened to his heart fail (I often listened to my dad’s heart, especially after he had open-heart). I know in my head that my father is gone.

But in my heart …

and then I got pregnant with Bubba Joe.

While my family as I knew it was falling apart, my family was growing.

I still don’t know how to process it all. And sometimes, I think it’s okay to not process, but to just keep going.

And when you are pregnant, and then that pregnancy gets complicated quickly, forcing real life and death decisions, there is no time to process in the here and now. Just like that Sunday evening when I realized it was the last time I would see my dad alive. There was no time to process what it all meant, or how tomorrow would feel like. I could only get the doctors and nurses and send BJD to pick up my mom and call my brother to tell him to stop fighting with his wife and get here because dad was dying.

And then my beautiful little boy was born … six weeks early.

My world crashed.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the beginning of the crash.

Since then, we moved over the great big blue … no, I say we moved but the truth is we ran away. I ran away from everything in hopes I could leave it all behind.

But it is now catching up with me.

And I feel so damned alone.

Alone not in that good solitude kind of way. I just feel lonely in that empty, nothing is fulfilling in my life kind of way.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore my family. Bubba Joe is one of the coolest kids I have ever met. He’s strong and sensitive, caring and bold, and incredibly creative. Giant Baby (who just turned 1 btw) is strong-willed and sensitive, observant and curious and intrigued by everything.

And BJD – well, he is the man I have always wanted. He makes everything in my life worthwhile.

Breasteeding while suffering from Post Partum Depression and Cloth Diapering.

Just in case you weren’t sure what those meant.

Feel free to skip this post if you don’t want to hear about boobs, brains or butts. (I am cracking myself up here – are you laughing yet? BJD insists I am not funny. I remind him often that I am – just ask G or her hubby – they’ll tell you how often I have told them too that I am funny.)

Little Girl, aka Giant Baby, turns 1 at the end of this month. While I nursed her older brother until she was born, I did not have intentions of her nursing this long. My body never fully recovered from her pregnancy and I now have chronic hypertension – which I take meds for. And breastfeeding with postpartum depression can have its benefits. It can also wreck havoc.

Giant Baby, or GB, loves to nurse. She’s pretty good about how and when to do it too – pretty much only when we are getting ready to go down for a nap or night time. We nurse pretty much exclusively in bed, not anywhere else. (I did the same with her brother and never really nursed in public, not because I was afraid to but because circumstances never presented themselves.)

I have no idea how to wean – and am not convinced I want to. I mean, I know I am not ready to, but I had seriously thought that by this time I would have given it more thought.

I like to have a plan.

And more importantly, I like to have options.

She drinks water from a cup – sometimes. I mean, she gets a cup daily, filled with water with a nice little flouride tablet (if I remember – must.remember.to.give.flouride as tap water here is not flourinated). But lots of times she enjoys spitting half of it out or letting it dribble out or, yeah she has a new toy – her tongue.

So far though, I have been able to manage both my high bp and PPD with meds that are compatible with breastfeeding.

Cloth diapering – started it with Bubba Joe and am continuing with GB. We used to use prefolds — you know, those pieces of fabric that are rectangular shaped with a thicker piece in teh middle that you fold up usually in thirds then pin together and put rubber pants on over it? Yeah, those.

Then I received my first fitted for free – and I was hooked. Or snappied. Or pinned. (Seriously, I gotta stop – I might wake up GB and then she’ll want the boob again and I am trying to write a post here!!!)

I just wanted to talk about CDing not because I had anything really to say about it but because it seemed to fill out the subject of this post. Shallow? Naw, I don’t think there’s enough depth for that (ha – there I go again. See? I AM funny.)